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A Mysterious A16z Tweet Sparked a Rally in Crypto Project Optimism's OP Token
The tweet spurred speculation that the notable venture capital firm could launch its own Optimism-based layer 2 blockchain. A16z crypto’s CTO tweeted: “not an L2.”
The native token of the Optimism blockchain, OP, rallied after an engineer at the crypto arm of venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) tweeted out a picture of an orange circle, accompanied by “coming soon.”
coming soon 🟠 pic.twitter.com/8kADUuervL
— ncitron.eth (@NoahCitron) April 18, 2023
Story continues
The color of the circle in the tweet matched that commonly associated with the a16z logo. Earlier this year, Coinbase teased the impending announcement of its Optimism-backed layer 2 network – called Base – by first tweeting out a blue circle.
The similarity of the images led to trader speculation that a16z may have plans to launch its own layer 2 blockchain, sending the OP token about 3% higher.
But Eddy Lazzarin, the chief technology officer of a16z crypto, subsequently tweeted “not an L2,” apparently denying that possibility.
🟠🪄 ✨
— Eddy Lazzarin 🟠🔭 (@eddylazzarin) April 18, 2023
(not an L2)
A16z and Paradigm co-led a $150 million funding round for Optimism in March 2022, which valued the Ethereum scaling solution at $1.65 billion.
A16z declined to comment on the speculation when contacted by CoinDesk.
Read more: A16z Highlights Web3 Strength in Its Second ‘State of Crypto’ Report
Update (April 18, 2023, 21:23 UTC): Adds tweet from a16z CTO saying it's "not an L2."
Brandy Betz
Brandy covered crypto-related venture capital deals for CoinDesk. She previously served as the Technology News Editor at Seeking Alpha and covered healthcare stocks for The Motley Fool. She doesn't currently own any substantial amount of crypto.
